Text in Illustrator

burwelbo

Posted 26 April 2007 - 02:48 AM

burwelbo

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Interests:Hockey, Hiking, Travel

Canada

I have been working on a map for a Cat Skiing company in Canada and I want to do the finished map layout in Illustrator. I use Photoshop quite a bit but this is my first time in designing anything in Illustrator. I created the map in ArcGIS but want a more professional design. I exported the map to AI at 400 DPI (I don't know if this means anything) and loaded it up to Illustrator. I had just done an autolabel in Arc thinking I can just manipulate the test in Illustrator later. Now for the questions.

1. How do I move certain text elements to new subgroups within the labels Group. Basically I want a subgroup of Hydrology, Physical Features and Populated Places. I created the groups but want to know how to move the elements.
2. Can I then colour/choose font, etc all at one time?
3. How do I then spline certain river features? I assume I can select the feature I want and then manipulate it to make it splined.

4. Not a text question. How do I automatically produe a Bezier Curve from a road? Again, I want to select it and then automatically curve it slightly.
5. Contours: How do I split the line to add the contour label?
6. lastly, How do you add a scale bar and North Arrow in Illustrator?

1. How do I move certain text elements to new subgroups within the labels Group. Basically I want a subgroup of Hydrology, Physical Features and Populated Places. I created the groups but want to know how to move the elements.

You can create a new layer or sublayer in the Layers palette. Then you can drag selected objects to that new (sub)layer. I generally create a layer "Labels" with sublayers for the various kinds of labels.

2. Can I then colour/choose font, etc all at one time?

Yes.

3. How do I then spline certain river features? I assume I can select the feature I want and then manipulate it to make it splined.

Do you mean cutting it up into smaller sections?

4. Not a text question. How do I automatically produe a Bezier Curve from a road? Again, I want to select it and then automatically curve it slightly.

I don't think this will automatically create a Bezier curve, but it will curve angular lines:

Select all the objects you want to process this way

Filter -> Stylize -> Rounded Corners (I have a Dutch version of Illy, so I'm not 100% sure about the English menus)

Set a radius (I generally accept the default value)

5. Contours: How do I split the line to add the contour label?

You can try Martin's overprint suggestion. I've never got that to work myself though: see here

Alternatively, you can use the scissors tool to cut the contour line on either side of the label and then set it to no stroke (or delete it alltogether).

6. lastly, How do you add a scale bar and North Arrow in Illustrator?

Tricky, unless you're using the MAPublisher plug-in. You may want to do that in Arc because it's quite difficult to get that right in plain Illustrator in most map projections.

MapMedia

Posted 26 April 2007 - 05:05 AM

MapMedia

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Bring everything you want on the map with you from ArcMap to AI.
In AI, you have to re-group the Labels layer into separate layers using the select>same as>fill color/line color etc., so think about how you need to prepare the map for AI before exporting from ArcMap.
Basically, keep your labels simple, and color code them - so you can separate them in AI. I usually assign font type/style/size/color (no text backdrops, masks).
Also - in AI's appearance toolbar, you can Add New Stroke (place behind fill) to add text casing in same layer. Useful sometimes.

Nice map! Since you want to finish it in AI (great decision BTW), I would recommend dashing out to book store and grabbing a good AI guide book - so you can read up on key functions and export options.

burwelbo

Posted 26 April 2007 - 07:01 AM

burwelbo

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Interests:Hockey, Hiking, Travel

Canada

Hans

What I want to do is spline the river text along a Bezier Curve. I was hoping once I had all the river text features on 1 sub group I could individually select the text and convert it some how so that it was a curve I could manipulate. In Arc, I need to retype the text. I was hoping to not have to do that. Also, with respect to ascale bar, will the scale be correct? I assume the export would scale the image correctly and I wouldn't have to do anything to make sure the map was at say 1:50000.

Hans van der Maarel

Posted 26 April 2007 - 07:59 AM

Hans van der Maarel

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What I want to do is spline the river text along a Bezier Curve. I was hoping once I had all the river text features on 1 sub group I could individually select the text and convert it some how so that it was a curve I could manipulate. In Arc, I need to retype the text. I was hoping to not have to do that. Also, with respect to ascale bar, will the scale be correct? I assume the export would scale the image correctly and I wouldn't have to do anything to make sure the map was at say 1:50000.

I tend to do that manually, on small scale maps that's often quicker because the river will be much more jiggly than the text curve. On larger scales, 1:100k-1:50k, the data I tend to use portrays rivers as area features (and usually doesn't have a name attribute anyway).